⚠️ Content on this page covers topics including suicide and domestic abuse.
Thank you for visiting my website.
I
I am a qualified counsellor, trainer and author of Answers In The Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal.
started my therapeutic career more than two decades ago, working with the bereaved. My special interest is dreams and sleep, and you may know me as a ‘Dream Expert’, ‘The Dreams Maven™’ or The Dreams Lady™’ with media appearances including BBC radio and ITV’s ‘Loose Women’. I am also the creator of a weekly newsletter called Monday Mojo™, which has been sent to inboxes each week since 2017.
My particular focus today is around spiritual intelligence; this means using my skills, training and background to help people, as I call it, find their ‘mojo’ and get their sparkle back, often during or after a difficult time in their lives.
Corporate Training I offer covers a range of topics including understanding mental health and bereavement awareness. Audiences have included police officers, paramedics and search & rescue teams as well as international businesses.
As I describe in Answers In The Dark, I was raised in a spiritualist household and now follow a Buddhist way of life.
Professional Career
I started my therapeutic career in 2002, where I supported those bereaved by murder and suicide, including attending inquests at coroner’s court. I have also worked across the private, public and third sectors including in a FTSE100 company, a national charity and in the NHS, in management and leadership roles.
Book(s)
I am the author of Answers In The Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal. The book aims to join the dots between our sleep, dreams and our mental health, specifically how grief shows up even if no one has died. It explores some of the big myths of sleep, offers a Sleep Cycle Repair Kit and some tips on how to decode your own dreams
Qualifications and Training
My qualifications are in Therapeutic Counselling, Delivering Adult Learning and Management and Leadership (CMI).
The theoretical model I was trained in, and use, is influenced by humanistic thinkers like Carl Rogers, that centres themes such as authenticity, awareness, compassionate social action, spirituality and self-transcendence.
I am also authentically trained in mindfulness, advocating Buddhist philosophy as one option for managing a busy mind, while working in a trauma-sensitive way.
I have attended additional training with the National Homicide Service, Victim Support and Women’s Aid and am accredited to work with victims of crime, including those escaping domestic abuse. I am also a Mental Health First Aider.
I ensure I engage with continuing professional development throughout the year, so that the learning I offer remains up to date.
Spiritual Work
The theoretical model I was trained in and use is influenced by humanistic thinkers like Carl Rogers, that centres authenticity, awareness, compassionate social action and self-transcendence. I also grew up in a spiritualist environment where we talked about things like dreams around the breakfast table, so it’s been natural for me to welcome these discussions in my professional life.
This work regularly includes conversations around meaning and purpose, especially following a life changing event. I use these skills, to provide spiritual and therapeutic learning, centred on the belief that all humans can reach their potential.
Charity Work
I offer my time in a number of ways to services in the public and third sector. This includes volunteering for a local emergency response team, providing emotional support in the event of a major incident.
I also volunteer my time supporting policing as an independent (unpaid) advisor, informed by conversations with those bereaved by murder and/or suicide as a result of domestic abuse. The national domestic abuse helpline in the U.K. is 0808 2000 247.
In my spare time, I work for a charity that provides an award winning transport service for patients with cancer, travelling to hospital for their treatment.
TV and Media Appearances
I have enjoyed many TV and media appearances talking about the subjects I am passionate about, including dreams and healthy sleep. You can view an expanded list of media appearances below:
Radio:
BBC Radio: BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 1 Xtra, BBC WM, BBC Hereford and Worcester, BBC Coventry, BBC Three Counties, BBC Radio 6 with George Lamb, BBC Suffolk Breakfast Show, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire Drive Time, BBC Radio Leeds Drive Time, BBC Tees, BBC Radio Shropshire, BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC London with Sunny & Shay and on the Eddie Nestor show, Talk Sport, Beacon Radio, Hallam FM, Original 106 FM, Gemini FM, WLR FM, XFM, The Psychic Show (LBC 97.3), My Spirit Radio, Bridge Radio, Red FM, Talk Radio.
Television:
Loose Women, ITV’s This Morning, DayBreak (Presenter of The Guide to Sleep), GMTV, The Wright Stuff, LK Today (Lorraine), Consultant to SO Television for My Lovely Audience (Graham Norton), Psychic TV and RSVP online
Featured work
NewsWeek, Natural Health, In Style Magazine, Glamour Magazine, Daily Express, Practical Parenting & Pregnancy Magazine, Soul & Spirit magazine, Huffington Post, Guardian (G2), Sunday Express, Pregnancy, Baby & You, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Pregnancy & Birth magazine, Prima Baby magazine, Practical Parenting, Columnist for Spirit & Destiny Magazine, Contributor to Talk Mum, Contributor to Silent Voices, Columnist for Spirit Force Magazine, Mens Health magazine
PR Events
Dreams Bed Company, Maybelline New York, Sky + HD (article featured in Daily Telegraph), Johnson’s Beauty: Dreamy Skin, Snow Leopard Trust
Peer Support
In 2004, I established a unique website and ran peer support group for two years dedicated to Pregnancy Mental Health, following my own experiences. As a result, I featured in several popular magazines on this topic, including Pregnancy and Birth and Natural Health magazines, and featured on radio programmes like Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. (You can see a full list of tv and media appearances below).
Later, I led a peer mentoring service for three years with a well-known mental health charity, offering relevant training to volunteers and helping establish the goals of those using the service.
During the pandemic I also ran a bereavement peer support group for grieving people, in my spare time. I also set up A Grief Note™ on Twitter (X).
Awards
- Volunteer of the Year Cohesion Award for services to the community;
- Nomination: “Women Who Keep Bedfordshire Safer”;
- Regional Finalist for the Health and Social Care Awards for Mental Health and Wellbeing;
- Spiritual Connextions Awards for Best Service to Others
Monday Mojo™ is my weekly newsletter designed to help you find your Mojo and get your sparkle back. You can subscribe here.
The Dreams Maven™ 